Algeria unexpectedly announced this Thursday the severance of relations with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country allied with Morocco, with which Algeria cut diplomatic ties in 2021, and with Israel, a state it does not recognize. The Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accuses the Emirati government of carrying out “an increasing number of provocative and hostile actions,” according to a statement released by the state news agency APS, which indicates that the decision was made “after exhausting all possible means to preserve bilateral relations,” without citing specific causes.
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The UAE ambassador in the Algerian capital has been summoned to convey the measure, which will be applied within 48 hours. “Despite numerous warnings” about interference in internal affairs, “the Emirates have continued to insist on hostile conduct,” the Algerian ministry statement specifies.
The Persian Gulf country has not yet officially reacted to the break in relations, although Anwar Gargash, diplomatic advisor to the UAE Presidency, replied via the social network X, without mentioning Algeria, that diplomatic relations require “rationality, communication, and clarity of interests” instead of “enigmas and signals that need to be deciphered.”
In recent years, Algeria has not looked favorably on the presence of the United Arab Emirates in its neighborhood. The Algerian High Security Council already denounced in 2024 the “hostile acts of an Arab country,” without explicitly mentioning the Emiratis. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, also alluded, without naming any state, to the “illogical actions” of an Arab country in the Maghreb and the Sahel, which he accused of financing tension in Libya and Mali, a veiled accusation against the Gulf emirates federation. Tebboune has even stated that Algeria gets along very well with all Gulf countries “except one.”
The United Arab Emirates normalized its relations with Israel in 2020, within the framework of the so-called Abraham Accords sponsored by Donald Trump during his first presidency, which was soon joined by the government of Rabat. Since then, both the United States and Israel have strengthened the rearmament of the UAE and Morocco.
The Gulf country also recognizes Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara. Algeria considers the Polisario Front as the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people and hosts the government in exile of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic along with thousands of refugees in the Tindouf region (southwest Algeria bordering Morocco).
Three years ago, King Mohammed VI made an official trip to Abu Dhabi to seal the financing of multi-billion infrastructures in the Maghreb country, together with the Emirati head of state, Mohammed Bin Zayed. Among other projects, they include the construction of superports, (similar to the one near Ceuta, Tanger Med) in Dakhla (formerly the Spanish Villa Cisneros) in Western Sahara, and in Nador, near Melilla. With about 15 billion euros, the UAE is one of the largest investors in Morocco.
The geopolitical tension between Morocco and Algeria has worsened since the independence of both countries in the second half of the 20th century. In 1963, their armies fought the so-called Sand War over territorial disputes. Since 1994, they have kept their common borders sealed. And in 2021, they broke diplomatic relations after Algeria accused Rabat of supporting a political party that advocates the independence of the Amazigh or Berber region of Kabylie (east of the country’s capital). Several international media outlets claimed at that time that Moroccan secret services allegedly used the Israeli Pegasus spyware program to hack the phones of about 6,000 Algerians, including several political and military leaders.
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